Evidence of meeting #7 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was track.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
So we don't really have an annual report on all the x-rayed materials. Does nobody from your department track that?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Nobody does in Transport.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
In that case, it's U.S. Customs. It's under the Department of Homeland Security. Even though these installations are located in Canada, they're actually operated by U.S. Customs.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Really? So say we did find illegal merchandise or a bomb on a railcar and it was actually x-rayed several kilometres before the Windsor-Detroit corridor. Would we just allow that to continue to go through the neighbourhoods and over into the United States before any type of action would take place?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
No. If there were a bomb, U.S. Customs would inform us immediately. It would go, most probably, through the Canadian customs, through CBSA, but the RCMP would be involved immediately. If there were a bomb on a train, obviously, the train would be stopped there and the bomb would be deactivated.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Right.
Approximately how many railcars do we have going over to the United States?
Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport
Canadian fleets have about 97,000 cars, and globally in North America there are 1.2 million cars. On any given day, they're being called to go up and down constantly. It would be very hard to establish a....
Right off the top of my head, I don't know what the number would be, but we could get that to you.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Yes, I would like to have that. We were dealing with, in another committee, stolen vehicles and other types of merchandise going through our ports. One indication was that perhaps the rail system was one of the vehicles used as well for stolen merchandise, so I'm just curious about the operations.
Now, you were saying something that I didn't realize: there are U.S. Customs officials in Canada operating the VACIS system. Is that what you're confirming?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
It's an arrangement between U.S. and Canadian customs. I'm not familiar at all with the operations, so you really have to speak to either U.S. Customs or CBSA.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
The reason I'm probing on this is that there have been a lot of discussions in, for example, the United States on the movement of chlorine and other types of dangerous, hazardous materials. Windsor has a corridor along there that's used as well. I'm just wondering whether....
I'm just kind of surprised that your agency doesn't really have that type of information after the screening is done. There are still several kilometres of track and then a tunnel to get over to the United States side. If there were safety issues and so forth....
I thought there would be maybe some type of overall information.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
I've been there since these VACIS machines started to operate, and I have not been made aware of any transportation security issues--none, zero.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Okay, that's good.
Second to that, in our area--and I'm curious about other parts of the country--I know we had a long, difficult struggle to get access to some of the rail yards to do emergency first responder training, especially the municipal fire and rescue operations. There were some agreements that were made to do some training exercises and so forth.
What's been the relationship across the country with the access of municipal and other first responders with regard to doing preplanned operations? It's private property, so permission is required and so forth.
Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport
So far it's been very good. We did one in Cobourg about a month and a half ago.
Usually we get very good cooperation. The cities are glad to cooperate. The feedback we're getting from firemen and first responders is that they're learning a lot from those exercises.
So it's going well so far.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Is there a special fund or assistance provided to municipalities to do some type of training? I mean, obviously this comes out of the time they use, their equipment and services and so forth--
Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport
When we had Direction 2006, we did participate in some of those mock accidents or derailments. The railway would provide equipment and the track and the city would provide the time for firemen first responders. Usually there was cost-sharing in place.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Is that going to carry on? Is there still going to be assistance for municipalities to do first responder training in subsequent years?
I just worry a little bit that with a lot of the budget constraints they're facing, for them to take personnel and overtime and training and so forth, if it comes from basically property tax providers, it's probably not the best source of supports.
Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport
I can't talk about funding. The only thing I can say is that we do have a new outreach program--Direction 2006 was from 1996 to 2006--and part of that outreach program uses a risk-based approach, finding the areas throughout the community where they may be helped with respect to rail safety. Then we try to determine the best tool to use to achieve what we're trying to achieve there.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Could you perhaps get back to us in terms of finding out whether or not your department still has money and funds available for, once again, these types of training projects?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
But as far as I know, we don't have any such program today.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
I can pretty much confirm that we don't have any.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Okay. That's too bad, because that's what I worry about, the work that has been done and also the constraints that are being faced right now. Obviously these are very much important issues, especially with chemicals and hazardous materials.
Those are all my questions right now.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.